


It's You and Me Against the World

by tatersalad5001



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (canon divergence only applies to chapter 5), (the canon divergence is that fantasy nintendo exists), .....yeah i'm not really sure how to tag this it's a mess. i'm trying???, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Flash Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Pre-Episode: e001-e006 Here There Be Gerblins Parts 1-6, Pre-Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Slice of Life, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Twinsweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13558299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatersalad5001/pseuds/tatersalad5001
Summary: It's twins week, and nothing can stop the twins' shenanigans.Day 1: Davenport is forced to make a decision.Day 2: Getting schooled by Barry fucking Bluejeans.Day 3: Imagination is the best magicDay 4: Learning some new spellsDay 5: Kravitz and Taako try to make the shittiest video game OC possibleDay 6: My Twin, My Boyfriend, and MeDay 7: Hey, McElroy, can we go thrift shopping?





	1. Favorite Twin

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so, it's [twinsweek](https://twinsweek.tumblr.com/post/169670876631/hello-everyone-and-welcome-to-taako-and-lup-week)! And, uh, I found about it late, and I started it late, and, uh, I still kinda want to do it. I'll probably keep these short, and try to blast through as fast as I can in a few days to make up for it, so I apologize. But this is a beautiful event and I hope this is a worthy contribution. This is going to contain all of them when I'm done, it'll be seven short chapters in all. This was a very sudden decision and I apologize.
> 
> Day 1 is for your favorite twin! But I don't have one, so I figured I'd let someone else decide. This one's somewhere during the Stolen Century.

"Hey, cap." Taako lounged over the top of the chair where Davenport was sitting, piloting the Starblaster. Davenport grunted to acknowledge Taako was there, but kept his eyes firmly planted on the space ahead. Taako took that as his cue to keep talking. "Which of us is your favorite?"

"...What?" Davenport asked.

"Which one of us is your favorite?" Taako repeated. "You know. Me and Lup. Who's your favorite twin?"

The Starblaster was starting to close in on a plane. It was too soon to know where to land, or whether it was safe to land at all. For now, Davenport pulled the ship into orbit. He leaned back into his chair and looked up at Taako.

"My favorite twin," Davenport echoed.

"Exactly. See, me and Lup have a bet going. Trying to figure out which of us is the best twin," Taako explained. "Your opinion is an important part of that. So, what's your answer?"

Davenport ran his hands down his face, sighing. "Taako. I'm your captain. I don't play favorites with any of you."

"Oh, come on, cap." Taako rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that shit. You have favorites here and we all know it, so spill."

"No, I mean it," Davenport told him. "You're all great, invaluable members of this crew. We're all family. I love you all equally."

"Mmhm, yeah, like, you're one of the team dads and all, but dads always play favorites."

Davenport held his hands up in surrender. "I gave you my answer. I'm not changing it."

"Pff, spoil sport," Taako mumbled. He pulled himself off Davenport's chair and walked away.

* * *

"--and that's why we need your help," Lup finished.

Merle finished repotting his plant and peered up at her. "So, you want me to cast Zone of Truth on Davenport so that he can settle your bet."

"You got it."

"Alright! You can count me in," he told her.

"Great!" Lup grinned and gestured him towards the doorway. "Now, come on. We're doing this now."

The two of them snuck out of Merle's room. Since putting the ship into orbit, Davenport had moved into the ship's kitchen. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee; his back was turned from where Lup and Merle were entering. The duo snuck into range, made sure Davenport still wasn't looking, and when Lup gave the signal, Merle cast his spell.

Davenport gave no reaction, just took a sip of coffee.

Lup entered the kitchen solo, a smile on her face. "Captain," she began. "My favorite captain in all the planar systems. My favorite gnome. The greatest pilot any world's ever seen."

Davenport took a long drink of coffee.

"Captain." Lup pitched her hands together, the sweetest smile she could muster on her face. She pointed the tips of her fingers towards him. "If you had to pick a favorite twin, who would it be?"

Davenport took another long, long drink of coffee before setting his mug down, turning around, and looking Lup in the eyes. "We've been travelling together a long time, Lup."

"Yes," she agreed, expression unchanging.

"So I'd think at this point you wouldn't think so little of me," he went on.

The smile dropped from Lup's face. "Huh?"

"I'm very used to your shenanigans by now. You two aren't going to be able to use magic to get me to change my answer," Davenport explained. He downed the rest of his coffee. "We're long past the point where a surprise Zone of Truth would work on me."

Lup laughed sheepishly and threw a glance back at Merle, who was entering the kitchen now that the jig was up. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"Right." Davenport almost looked amused for a moment, until he felt another spell miss him. He groaned. "That's not going to work either."

Something next to Lup snorted, which by this point, couldn't surprise her anymore. Taako dispelled his Greater Invisibility spell and appeared next to her. It was more than

obvious that his attempted Charm Person spell failed as badly as Merle's spell. "I can't believe I thought that would work."

"You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat my saving throws," Davenport responded.

"Well, beans." Lup crossed her arms. "Now how are we going to settle this?"

That's when Magnus walked in, going for his own mug of coffee.

"Excellent." Lup clapped her hands together. "Magnus. Favorite twin. Now."

"Lup," Magnus answered without hesitation.

Taako gasped. "How could you?!" ("Fuck yeah!" Lup yelled beside him.)

"What?" Magnus shrugged. "We're like, kindred spirits. We're unstoppable when we work together."

"You can't even pretend to think about it??"

Davenport left the kitchen, sighing. "I should've just pretended one of those spells worked."


	2. Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: Sibling Bonding
> 
> Since this was spur of the moment, I bounced between a few ideas within the span of an hour or so, and it was hard to pick one. I might even write one or two separately eventually, but... some of these ideas were stuff like: Taako and Lup go to the thrift store in post-canon, Taako and Lup trying to plan out their lives over Fantasy Mario Kart in pre-canon, Barry disappears at the end of the Stolen Century instead of Lup and Taako and Lup end up with their own diner together (not that i want to do that to barry but! listen.)...
> 
> But here's the winner for this prompt, anyway. Sticking to the Stolen Century for this one. Day 2: damnit now we're bonding with Barry, too, it's twins week c'mon

Siblings don't always get along, not even the closest of siblings.

However, it seemed Lup and Taako were exempt from that rule. In the years the crew had traveled together, arguments between the twins were rare and fairly short-lived. What actually constituted an argument here was a vague and generous definition. Most of the time when it seemed the two of them might be against each other, it turned out to be a joke, some light teasing at most. Big arguments, heated arguments, long arguments, those were pretty much unheard of for Lup and Taako.

So when the cycle reset, everyone was back and in their original positions (Taako and Lup were standing next to each other, holding each other's hands with a death grip to remember they still had each other), it was a surprise when the twins pulled away from each other almost immediately, glaring at each other.

The previous cycle, the previous plane, had been hostile. Specifically, it was the flora. Merle, always eager to discover new plants, had been the first to go. He'd just disappeared after a few days. Magnus went out to look for him soon after, he was next. They began disappearing one by one, until Barry had managed to grab the Light of Creation. He got it back to the ship, but wasn't able to make it back himself. He was the last to go. (They were still relatively early on in the journey; he wasn't a lich yet, and neither was Lup.) After that, Lup and Taako were the only two left, having barely left the ship at all that cycle. For about four months it was just them, and while they'd been in the position constantly before the Starblaster mission, it was the first time since. They still worked together flawlessly; when the Hunger showed up, Lup drove the Starblaster off while Taako stayed in the back of the ship, making sure the ship would make it. But, clearly something had happened in those months alone. If looks could kill, Lup and Taako would be down for the cycle already.

Normally the seven of them would celebrate having just gotten through a cycle like this, but the atmosphere was far too charged for something like that.

"Uh, you two okay?" Magnus asked them, looking back and forth between Lup and Taako. 

"Yeah,  _I'm_ fine." Lup lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, still staring Taako down. " _He's_ the one with the problem."

"There  _isn't_ a problem," Taako insisted. He turned his head away. " _I'm_ not the one overreacting about this."

"Overreacting?!"

"Okay, okay." Davenport raised his voice loud enough to cut the argument off before it could really start. Most of his attention was firmly kept to driving the ship, he wasn't facing any of them or moving from his spot. He didn't need to, because Taako and Lup went quiet immediately. "I don't know what this is about, and right now I don't really care. We all need to be on good terms to get anything done around here. So I need you two to sort it out, and sort it out as fast as possible. You can do it yourselves or we can help you, but if this is still going on next cycle, I'm getting involved. Okay?"

Lup mumbled something inaudible. Taako just shrugged.

"Good. Now, let's head to the next plane," Davenport said.

The twins stalked off in opposite directions, Taako to his room and Lup to the kitchen.

* * *

"Hey, uh, Taako?" Barry knocked on the door to Taako's room. "Can I come in?"

"Do whatever you want, Barold," came the response. 

Barry opened the door to find Taako sprawled out on his bed, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Taako's room, as always, looked like a whirlwind had just passed through. Food, backup wands, clothes, and other items and junk were scattered around. Taako's bed was in the middle of it all, the eye of the tornado. It was relatively neat at the moment, blankets piled on top of the bed not necessarily neatly but good enough. 

Before anything else, Barry closed the door behind him and sat on the edge of the bed, near where one of Taako's feet were. "So, uh, you gonna talk to her?"

"To my sister?" Taako blew a raspberry in Barry's general direction. "Not yet. I can smell the banana bread she's making from here, she needs time to chill out. Honestly, I do too. We're not getting past this in a day."

"Right, yeah, that's fine," Barry agreed. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. What, uh, happened?"

Taako let out a breath through gritted teeth. "It started like, I don't know. A week ago? A month? We weren't having a great time. This whole thing's a lot harder without you chucklefucks. We had to figure out how to drive the ship, we were trying to study the Light of Creation, shit like that. Lup was worried about the people living planet-side. Like, if you all were taken down, what about them? I figured, they all lived there longer than we did, they had to be used to it by now, figured out how to deal. That didn't help, so I pointed out it didn't matter. Like, those people don't even matter, we aren't going to see them again now that we're in a new cycle, you know? Now she's all mad at me! Like, what the fuck?"

"Uhh..." Barry stared down at him. "So you just, don't care about the people that lived in the last plane."

"Nope." Taako waved a hand through the air. "They're not here. We're gone. It's pointless."

"Right. I don't want to take sides or fight with either of you, so I'm not going to argue or agree on that one," Barry decided. "But it sounds like you're both looking at this differently. You're more concerned with the short-term, with what's in front of you. If something won't stick around, it doesn't matter to you. But I think she's seeing things more long-term? She's thinking about more than just our team. She wants to help everyone however she can, probably. You have a lot of the same objectives in mind, just different plans and methodologies."

"So you're saying I'm a shitty person who only cares about myself and she's someone that's great and still cares about people," Taako commented. "Fuck, I had to get rid of that attitude when we were still kids, it was holding me back. I don't know how she deals with it."

Barry frowned. "No, I'm just saying you have different perspectives. That's a good thing. We need different perspectives here, for our mission, for everything we're doing here. It's okay for you two to have different outlooks on this. It's okay to be different, you just have to...celebrate that, instead of screaming at each other?"

"Barold, you're killing me, here." Taako shoved his fingers through his hair. "What's the point of a good argument if you're going to be sensible about it? You're like, calming me down and making me feel bad."

"You don't really want to keep fighting with your twin sister, do you?" Barry pointed out.

"...No, I don't." Taako pouted.

"Then come on." Barry stood up and held out a hand. Taako grabbed it and pulled himself up. "Let's play some Fantasy Checkers or something and give her some space. When she's ready you can talk it out. You'll get through this."

* * *

At least a couple of weeks passed before Taako approached Lup. She's still mad, of course. He still kind of was, too. But she'd had space to breathe and chill out a little, Barry actually talked him out of his self-absorbed attitude, and he just wanted this to be over. At this point, at least, she was ready to hear him out. If she needed more time after that, whatever, that was her problem. She couldn't blame him if he was trying.

She's in her room, sulking, probably. He knocked on her door, loudly enough that she couldn't ignore it. Usually he wouldn't even think about it, usually he wouldn't need to. But, well, it was better to be safe than sorry here.

Lup opened the door after about a minute passed. Her eyebrows rose for a moment, then a scowl settled on her face. "What."

"Lulu..." Taako ran a hand through a loose part of his hair, which was mostly pulled lazily together in a braid for the day. He'd been hella confident about this five minutes ago, you know, until he remembered he was really bad at this. Talking things out, feelings, apologizing. He had to try, at least, but that didn't mean he had to love every second of it. It would work out eventually, Barry said so. "Can we talk about this?"

"You've said a lot already," Lup pointed out.

"We both have," he agreed. "Look, I'm not here to argue. I just want to talk."

Lup sighed. "Fine. Get in here."

Lup's room was slightly less chaotic than Taako's. At the very least, there was an empty, suitable chair, somwhere to sit besides the bed. She took the bed, and he, after closing the door behind them, just sort of hovered around the door. When she looked him in the eye again, her expression was still unchanged. In contrast, his was drooping by the second. Normally he had a good poker face, could bluff about his emotions like the best of them. He didn't have it in him at the moment.

"So?" she prompted.

"I don't like fighting with you," he said. 

"No shit, me neither."

"Barold talked to me."

"You're going to the  _nerd_ with your problems now," she commented. Taako bit back any argument his brain wanted to make before his mouth could say it. Nope, done with that one. "So he told you how wrong you are and now you're here to admit I'm right."

"Well, uh, maybe? Kinda? He's trying to be, like, neutral and shit." Taako crossed his arms and, despite everything, tried to put on his best poker face. "He says we have different opinions and perspectives on this whole thing and it's okay not to agree. That it helps the team to have different ideas. But, fuck, we're twins but we're still different people. We  _don't_ agree on everything, but you don't set me on fire whenever I pull together the most ugly outfit you've ever seen."

Lup took a deep breath and gave him a  _look_. She didn't look as mad anymore, the scowl was gone, but she was clearly still unimpressed. After a moment of silence, she told him, "You're really going to compare actual living people to clothes."

"Maybe? I guess so? I'm not trying to-- Look." It was Taako's turn to take a deep breath. Not to calm down, but to clear his mind, to try to think before talking for once. "If I don't ever try to care about these people on different planes, I'll hold everything back. I'll lose sight of our goals and won't even try to help, and we'll all be miserable. But if you care too much about these people on different planes, and you act on that, that holds us back, too. You'll lose sight of our goals and try to help even more, but not in the right way. You'll lose focus and we'll all be miserable. We're alike in a lot of ways because we're rad and we're the best, but in stuff like this we balance each other out. And we're better off for it."

Lup offered nothing in reply to that.

"So, um." That was a cool flow and all, but now Taako had no idea how to end all that. "I acted really shitty about everything. And that hurt you. And I'm sorry."

Lup stayed silent for another minute. Taako didn't move, unsure if he should just run out of the room or not. Before he could decide, she burst into laughter.

"Uh," he said.

"I can't believe Barry  _fucking_ Bluejeans schooled us!" she cackled. "Holy shit. What a fucking guy." Getting control of herself again, she grinned at him. "I was a huge dick about this, too. Probably more than you were. I know the way you operate and I love you. I shouldn't have gotten so mad at you. Sorry."

Taako rolled his eyes. "We do things we shouldn't all the time, dingus."

Lup snorted. "Yeah. So let's stop being mad about it." She stood up and looped an arm around his back. "C'mon, goofus. Let's go make dinner for these sorry fools. Maybe binge Fantasy Netflix later. Everyone's going to be so surprised to see us in the same room again, I can't wait to see their faces."

It ended up being one of the best days Taako had in awhile. He could barely remember ever being happier.

 


	3. Simpler Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: Childhood
> 
> Hi I'm bringing this ride back under control. I lost control of the last one. It's Barry's fault yell at him with me. Going back to basics here, Lup and Taako and some pre-canon adventures. The twins are very young in this one. Alternatively, day 3: in the meadow we can have a magic fight

Sometimes, people would give the twins sad looks when they realized the two of them were on their own. Lup and Taako stopped caring about that a long time ago. They were fine on their own, so who cares? They could take care of themselves.

They were young and cute, yeah, so they used that to their advantage. They were more likely to be given a chance that way, to get a place to stay overnight or to get a ride on a caravan to go somewhere new. Their aunt used to cook with them a long time ago, and they knew all her best recipes by heart. By now they could cook almost as well as she could, and that helped, too. Caravans would rather take in kids that could feed them than kids that weren't good for anything. Sometimes someone in a caravan would lend them a book to read, usually spellbooks. Learning magic was a dream of theirs, and they'd take any opportunity to work towards it. They didn't have anything to channel magic with, and their spellcasting ability was absolute shit, but maybe someday. 

The current caravan that had taken them in, however, had no books. Some circus folk used magic, but this group was more the acrobatics type. So, rather than learning magic on the side, the twins were practicing their circus tricks. If they could actually be in the circus, then hey, maybe these people would let them stick around longer. Maybe they could actually have something stable for awhile.

It was an off day. Lunch was over, there was plenty of time before dinner needed to be started, and circus practice was off limits. Everyone was taking a break. 

It was Lup who noticed the icicles hanging off the snow-covered caravan roof, who saw their appeal. She pulled off two of the easiest ones to reach and showed them to Taako. With icicles in their hands, they looked like real wizards!

The caravan wasn't going anywhere that day, so they were free to go outside. And go outside they did. They ran around, letting their imaginations run with them. Sometimes they used their icicles to get in swordfights, sometimes it was magic fights. Sometimes they were on the same side, fighting together, and other times they were bitter enemies. Most of the time they just pretended to shoot spells off at anything and everything they saw, real or imagined. Lup's icicle was glowing in her hand; she was the only one of the two who could get the cantrip Light working, her only spell. Taako couldn't use any at all, not yet. Lup knew he'd catch up to her in no time. Her brother was just cool like that. Together they were the best, unstoppable.

They didn't get to have fun like that a lot. They didn't get to pretend to be normal kids a lot, to get to play without a care in the world. They treasured every second of it.

Eventually, they collapsed next to the caravan, exhausted.

"We're gonna be real wizards one day, Koko," Lup reminded him. "We're gonna have real spells and we'll be able to do anything."

"We're gonna be the best wizards ever," Taako added. "And then we'll never have to worry about anything ever again. We won't even need the dumb caravans."

He was right, Lup knew so. She loved her brother, he really was the best. She'd never be able to live like this without him.


	4. The Heart Remembers what the Mind Forgets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: Free Space/Headcanon!! Decided to go with a small headcanon, allow this ride to lose some more control of the angst. Time to learn some new spells!

Taako (you know, from TV?) was becoming relatively known around Faerun at this point in his life. The audience count for his shows had been starting to pick up. People were starting to recognize him outside of his show. He’d really started to become successful, to turn things around for himself.

So, of course, that’s when shit started to go sideways.

Most folks weren’t pleased to learn what his show had done to Glamour Springs. Even if Taako tried to keep it going at this point, business would drop, audience numbers wouls plumet. Not to mention his assitant was now gone, too, probably out of fear. Even more, Taako’s transmutation spells were completely out of control at this point. Definitely unusable. The show had to be cancelled, stopped, abandoned.

Now that Taako was starting to become a public figure, he needed to disappear along with it. A change in image was needed. He’d keep the name, everything else could change.

First of all, he needed to change his face. Well... Disguise Self would be an option if his magic weren’t fucked at the moment. But he could make do. He’d held onto a few things from his show, and among them was a small knife suitable for chopping. Usually to chop vegetables, but in this case, it worked to cut his hair from its normal mid-back length to just above his chin. Within a day, he found a tacky, cheap pair of fantasy sunglasses that someone had left behind. These were quickly washed in a nearby ricer and slid onto his face.

He’d miss his old haircut, of course. He loved his old hair. Taking care of his hair and styling it was one of his favorite pasttimes. At least he wouldn’t have to keep it at that length. Hopefully by the time it grew out to its previous length, this whole mess would blow over. For now, it’d at least be quick to care for, and it could still be styled. The next time he saw himself in the mirror after that, he could’ve sworn that seeing himself in this haircut looked familiar. Taako definitely hadn’t ever cut his hair short before.

Next was the outfit. With the show, Taako mostly stuck to what was practical. An apron, clothes he couldn’t care less about how clean they were, and who could forget the signature chef hat? The chef hat was quickly thrown out. Replacing it was a large, flashy wizard hat. He could vaguely remember wearing some kind of hat similar to it before the show started, but no one would recognize him with it now, and it helped hide his face a little, too. Gone went the practical cooking clothes, no need for those. Now Taako could finally stand to dress uo a little. He changed his style up, though, at least for the time being. He tended to go for more revealing outfits, now he covered himself up as much as possible. 

The last big change was in occupation. Travelling chef was out the window for several very good reasons. But he still had to rake in the dough somehow. The easiest path, he decided, was to become a simple average adventurer. He had all the skills and knowledge required, and it would allow him to keep moving around, reducing his chances of being recognized. The only issue would be sticking to his wizard class. Taako specialized in transmutation, and that was unusable to him now. 

Maybe he could switch to evocation, at least temporarily. Until he regained some control over his old spells again, until he was in the clear again. It was probably the most practical switch he could make if he was going adventuring. Any enemies he faced would be hit and hit hard. Not to mention the way it would force him to learn control, helping his magic issues. He spent months barely getting by, practicing evocation before taking hjs first job.

It was strange. Evocation magic was comforting, in the same way his aunt’s favorite recipes were. Wielding it, being around it, Taako felt safe and grounded. It probably wasn’t normal to feel like that from harnessing the power of real actual fire. He had no idea why. Regardless, it helped.

Time passed. Taako took on the last job he’d ever have to take, as part of a small party. In a way, it turned out to be true. He’d nearly died along the way, but found  himself accepting a long-term job offer instead.

Somewhere during the fiasco, he became the new owner of some sort of umbrella staff. Just holding it lifted his heart. It was comforting, like fire.

His old magic was finally getting back under control, but it would still be awhile before he was back at the same level as before. His hair had only just atarted to grow out again. He continued wearing various wizard hats, but otherwise his outfits became a mix of his regular and forced styles. Life was looking up again.

When the Director prepared to welcome the newest initiates to her Organization, when they walked into her office for the first time, she felt her nearly stop.

For the briefest of moments, she thought Lup had entered the room. For the briefest of moments, Lucretia thought Lup had finally come back.


	5. It's a Force of...Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: a Taako ship  
> TBH most of the best taz ships are the canon ships so. Please take some Kravitz thank you. I had a hard time coming up with something for this one, but I'm pretty happy with what I settled on.

After a long day of work in the Astral Plane, Kravitz always enjoyed coming home. To the prime material plane, to Taako.

Most days, Taako would have dinner ready and waiting for him, still warm and always delicious. Some days he'd bombard Kravitz with questions about work, sometimes he'd tell Kravitz about his own day at work. They'd share a meal, hang out for awhile, and do it all again the next day. It was probably the closest thing to a routine Kravitz had had in a long time, with how chaotic his work could be, and he loved and appreciated it every moment it lasted. He loved and appreciated Taako every moment they had together.

This particular day was no different. Taako made it home before Kravitz, dinner was ready when Kravitz arrived. He looked around for Taako before they ate; Taako ended up being in the living room. He had their Fantasy Nintendo Switch going on the Fantasy TV, pro controller in hand, as he lay on their couch. (Kravitz, you think I can play with the joy cons? Really? I have  _standards_.) Kravitz glanced up at the TV to see what game Taako was playing, and snorted.

"Fantasy Sonic Forces?" Kravitz asked. "Didn't you buy that as a joke?"

"Oh, hey Krav." Taako pulled himself into an almost sitting position. "I mean, it was a good joke, but do you know how expensive video games are? I'm getting my money's worth out of this one, thank you." He gestured to the now vacant spot on the couch next to him. "Come on, sit down and help me make my character. He's gonna look stupid as fuck when we're done."

Kravitz sat down on the couch as Taako scrolled through the animal options. "I'm going to put my vote towards the bird."

"Oh, for the prophecy shit?" Taako rolled his eyes. "You wound me. That's an insult to the entire team. We deserve better than this." Kravitz knew better than to think Taako actually gave a shit, especially when Taako immediately picked the bird anyway. "I'm thinking the, like, red and black eyes? We can make him edgy and shit."

"Oh, absolutely," Kravitz agreed. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

They went through the options one by one. Most of their choices ended up clashing, which was for the best. Their character honestly looked like he'd be anywhere else than on their TV screen. He was absolutely perfect. Taako thought about making a minor change, but Kravitz was ready to swat the controller out of Taako's hands to keep their character the same. They couldn't put in a name for their character, of course, but Taako declared its name was Jenkins, so that they were 'naming their shitty character after a shitty wizard'. Character creation done, Kravitz walked into the kitchen to bring out dinner for them both so they could continue enjoying their trainwreck.

"Isn't this from a game series about, like, running fast?" Kravitz asked after a cutscene.

"I think so," Taako responded.

"This is absolutely crazy, like, they're in a war? They think their friend is dead? It's crazy."

Taako grinned. "You love this. We both know you do, don't even pretend." Kravitz couldn't argue that one.

Overall, they didn't spend a lot of time actually playing the game. It wasn't a whole lot of fun for either of them, but they still got a lot of laughs out of Jenkins the Bird. Their stupid character actually appeared in  _actual game cutscenes_. Jenkins, of course, looked like he hated every second of it, and they couldn't blame him, but it made it all the funnier. It was a fun evening, until Kravitz was called away to track down a small party of necromancers that were misusing their magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i love sonic forces, fight me


	6. Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: a Lup ship  
> Hi I love Lup and I love Barry and you know who else I love? The Mcelroy brothers and their great advice podcast

Something about this plane was...really off. 

Within a few days of investigating and learning about the plane, the Starblaster crew had a pretty good picture of what was happening. Most of the people they found stayed in hiding. Everyone else had just vanished. Some mysterious magic or some other force had to be involved in this, but all the remaining people knew about the disappearances what that they typically happened around where something they called a 'clown box' had been sighed, just after it had been sighted. Apparently the box traveled around on its own. It was widely believed that this box was behind the disappearances.

Could that really be true?

"Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation," Barry commented as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. By now a week had passed. The crew was having a meeting on the ship's outer deck. They were partially trying to locate the Light of Creation, partially focused on this box thing. It was hard not to be when that box was all anyone would talk about. "I don't disbelieve the reports about the box sightings just before where the disappearances occur. But, well, I don't see any reason to think that a  _box_  is behind this. Maybe if we actually find this box, we can get a better idea."

Damn, Barold fucking Bluejeans was a huge nerd. And Lup absolutely loved him for it.

"Are you sure we should get into this?" Davenport asked, crossing his arms. "These disappearances are worrying. But we can't get too sidetracked with the mission. If we aren't sure it's involved with the disappearances  _or_ the mission, then..."

"Oh, this is absolutely worth our time. Here's the scoop from cha boy himself." Taako slammed his hands on the railing around the deck. "There's a rumor going around that this box makes exchanges. No one I talked to actually tried it, so it's not confirmed. But if it is, then maybe we can get the Light from the freaky box."

"Do you really believe all this box stuff?" Magnus asked. "I mean, we've seen plenty of freaky stuff before, but like. It's a box. Even if the box is involved, it has to be some kind of magical artifact, or someone is doing something with it.”

”It’s the best lead we have right now,” Merle said. “I don’t think it’ll hurt to look into it. We don’t have to all focus on the box, either. Divide and conquer. If that box has what we need and we ignore it, we’re screwed.”

”Fuck yes. I call the spooky box,” Lup volunteered immediately, before anyone could even agree with or argue Merle’s idea. “Last cycle was boring. I want an adventure.”

”I’m still pretty curious about the box myself,” Barry admitted. “There’s so many possibilities here, and, uh...”

”Great. You two focus on the box then,” Davenport decided. “For your sakes, I hope it’s nothing, but I do agree it’s worth a check.”

The rumors Taako heard mentioned that the box had once only wanted to make exchanges for a certain type of item, but it had since evolved to accept a variety of gifts. Apparently, it judged their worth on a per item basis, whatever that meant. Barry and Lup went to work preparing their gifts. They decided to go with one each, to get the most information. Barry made a potion that cured most mild ailments. Lup went for a transmuted species of plant that was native to their own world, absent from this one. (That idea was from Merle. All her ideas involved setting shit on fire which probably wouldn’t help here.)

Rumor finally spread, which they soon heard, that the box had resurfaced. It wasn’t too far away from the ship. The rest of the crew wished Lup and Barry luck as they went of to collect information.

”You’re really curious about this box?” Lup inquired as they walked. “I thought you didn’t think the box was actually doing anything.”

”Well, uh, I am curious,” he replied. “I’m curious about a lot of things. I’m the head scientist here, it’s my job I guess?”

”Sounds like it’s more than just that.” Lup shifted the plant in her arms. Damn this thing was heavy. Barry had the right idea, his thing was tiny.

”Uh, yeah, sure, I. Thought it’d be fun to do this together. With you. Hang out, have an adventure, try not to die, that sort of thing.” Barry looked away. Boy, was he bad at words when he didn’t want to be.

Lup grinned. “Aw, babe, you have a crush on me.”

”We’ve been dating for five cycles,” Barry pointed out.

”Still.”

Barry snorted and looked around in a sweep of the immediate area they had reached. His gaze locked on on a landmark they’d been told to look for. “We’re getting close. We should be able to see it s—“

”Barry,” Lup interrrupted him.

”Yeah?”

”I think we found it.”

He looked straight ahead and, sure enough, there was a box in front of him. It was...something, for sure. The box stood taller than both of them. A human in some of the strangest clothes he’d ever seen was painted on its front. There was a small hole in the middle, where an equally strange hand was sticking out. Perhaps strangest of all, he’d looked in this direction only a few seconds ago. He could swear it hadn’t been there. It was easy to see why this thing creeped the locals out.

”We sure are,” he agreed. “I’ll, uh, see if it’ll trade? Or find out whatever it does? Yeah.”

Walking slowly, Barry approached the box. The box held out its hand in anticipated, seeming to expect him to give it something. When he was in reaching distance of the box, he carefully placed his potion in its hand before jerking his hands away. He didn’t want to touch this thing. The box pulled its hand back in, and for a few seconds, nothing happened.

The hand then returned, holding something else. It dropped a bottle of bubble soap and a bubble wand in his hands.

”Uh, thanks?” Barry said, backing away as quickly as possible.

”Now we know that part’s true,” Lup observed. “Guess that your thing wasn’t cool enough for what we need. Let Lup show you how it’s done.”

More confidently, she strode forward and dumped the plant into its hand. The hand retreated once more, though not without difficulty. The plant was almost too big for the hole, oops. She stayed anyway, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for at least twice as long as Barry had had to.

”Well, shit,” Lup huffed as she turned away from the box. “Someone clearly doesn’t know greatness when they see it. Come on, Barry, let’s go.” She took a few steps towards him.

Something behind her fell. Barry heard it, too, though he definitely didn’t see anything fall? Lup turned around again and they both looked. Something was sitting at the base of the box.

”Is that...” Lup began.

”The Light of Creation?” Barry finished.

They both ran forward. The closer they got, the more clear it was that that was exactly what it was. Lup reached the box mere seconds before Barry. They both bent down to examine the Light together.

No one saw Barry or Lup for the rest of that cycle.

Dying wasn’t uncommon for either of them, especially after they became liches. But the thing was, their liches usually stuck around after that. If they died away from the ship, they came back. Always. Never once did they along with their lich forms vanish completely. Either they were alive, but trapped, they were in their lich forms, but somehow trapped, or something on this plane could kill liches as well as living beings, and it was stronger than they were.

Davenport ordered everyone to remain on the ship for the rest of that cycle. He couldn’t risk losing the rest of them. At times he could swear he’d see either Lup or Barry in the shadows surrounding their ship, wearing really weird clothes and...dabing? He was probably imaginig it, but still.

Something about this place was fucked up. He wasn’t getting in the middle of it, not anymore. Lup and Barry would come back next cycle.


	7. Thrift Store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7: Post-Canon  
> This one is probably the first idea I had for all this, but I wasn't entirely sure where to place it. Post-canon was my gut feeling for placement, and that's where it ended up, but this was almost sibling bonding. It works both ways, I guess. These have been kind of all over the place.  
> I...spent my senior year of high school with mono, and it sucked. I barely left the house outside of doctor's appointments and to take tests for my online classes for school. It hurt to think at all and I stopped feeling like a real person for about two years, and I'm still not the same. As I recovered, one of the things to help myself readjust to like, being alive, was back then my mom had a schedule that let her volunteer at our local thrift shop when it was our church's turn to volunteer (one saturday ever two months or so), and I went with her, and it was a disaster. And, well, I've never been a lich or an umbrella before, but I imagine Lup having a body again might face some...similar difficulties? So.  
> Alternatively: Hey, McElroy, can we go thrift shopping?

The thrift store’s door opened. Taako was the first to step through, his twin sister Lup shuffling in behind him. Taako was bright, cheery, and expressive, his mood only lifting with every day he still had his sister around.

Lup...still wasn’t used to having a body again. Or used to being outside her umbrella.

”I hit this thrift store a few times while I was on the road. They’ve got a nice variety here, and the prices are unbeatable,” he told her. 

They’d come out just to go to the thrift store; Taako had been upfront about that. During their century of space travel and time cycles, the two of them had spent a fair amount of time exploring different stores, thrifty or not, to see what they had. Even before the mission, on their home plane, they’d usually shop at thrift stores for clothes when they had the money. Thrift stores weren’t just cheap, they had some pretty nice clothes most of the time. It was good to get into that groove again. They didn’t necessarily need the clothes, nor the cheap prices, but it got them out of the house. Lup needed to get out of the house, desperately.

Taako pulled her into a side room, showing her around before they started looking. He had enough energy and positivity for both of them, which worked for Lup. She didn't have much of anything going for her. Not that she didn't want to be here, and not that she didn't want to be out with her brother. She did. It was just...hard for her to be a real person again. Her mind felt cloudy and full of static. Everything hurt. Most of her just want to be asleep, to not move, but no. She was going to be here, and she was going to get better.

The book room offered little to her at the moment. She wasn't really in a state of mind or anything where she felt she  _could_ read. Taako picked up a couple of books he thought Kravitz and Barry might be interested in. The children's area was certainly interesting, but held nothing Lup could care about. Games? Maybe after a few months she could try to pick up that card game Barry had recently gotten into, but not now. Toys were cool as heck, but required imagination and energy she couldn't summon at the moment. Most of the rest of the thrift store had rooms for clothes, which was by far the most exciting thing going on here. It'd been too long.

"What do you think about this?" Lup asked, holding a shirt up for Taako to see. It was rather plain for her (for either of them), and she knew she probably wouldn't wear it all that much if she got it. It could have its uses, maybe if she needed to convince someone she was a normal boring person. She was desperate to find something good, though. Routing through hangers and hangers of clothes and finding nothing either comfortable, aesthetically pleasing, or both was always a huge disappointment. She needed a win here, throw her a bone.

"Hmm." If Taako noticed it was outside her usual tastes, he didn't say anything. Knowing him, he probably had noticed, but probably didn't care all that much. He was probably just glad to get her out and see her interested and doing something. "Try it on. See how it looks and fits."

"Alright." Lup nodded and set about the task of trying the shirt on. Immediately. Her brain, deciding to forget how social rules work, decided to start trying to take off her shirt in the middle of the store.

”Luku.” Taako grabbed her shoulder, stopping her before she actually got anywhere with it. “You can try it on in the bathroom, it’s right there,” he said as he pointed to the bathroom nearby.

”Oh, yeah, I... Sorry about that,” she laughed as she went into the bathroom.

She did end up getting the shirt, as well as a pair of pants. Taako got some nice skirts and dresses and shirts. It was fun.

Afterwards, they went up to the moon base. Lucretia was hosting a small get-together there, for the seven of them and the friends they had made on this plane. Lup spent most of it on the timelines, watching but not interacting. Barry sat with her for most of it as well, making sure she was okay. She was. She was just tired.

Of all the planes they could end up on, she was glad it was this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for sticking with me through this! I hope you all enjoyed this, even if I flew kind of fast and loose with most of the prompts. It was fun, though, and I hope you liked these as much as I did. I'm excited to check out the other content for this event soon. Thanks [twinsweek](https://twinsweek.tumblr.com/) for giving me an excuse for writing about my favorite twins.   
> I have some other taz one-shots hanging around if you're looking for more from me, I want to write more taz stuff, too (this event inspired some new ideas for me which I'm excited for), and if you're ever looking for me you can find me [here on tumblr](http://datanamines.tumblr.com). Thanks for reading, for sticking around, I love you all.


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